Part 21 (2/2)

Yells were coming from half a dozen different directions; forms, racing along with lanterns bobbing up and down, were tearing madly for the upper end of the yard toward him; there was a blur of switch lights, red, white, purple and green--then with a wicked lurch around a curve darkness hid them, and the sweep of the wind, the roar of the pounding drivers deadened all other sounds.

P. Walton smiled--a strange, curious, wistful smile--and sat down in Mulligan's seat. His qualifications for a Brotherhood card had been exhausted when he had pulled the throttle--engine driving was not in P.

Walton's line. P. Walton smiled at the air latch, the water gla.s.s, the gauges and injectors, whose inner workings were mysteries to him--and clung to the window sill of the cab to keep his seat. He understood the throttle--in a measure--he had ridden up and down the yards in the switchers once or twice during the month that was past--that was all.

Quicker came the bark of the exhaust; quicker the speed. P. Walton's eyes were fixed through the cab gla.s.s ahead, following the headlight's glare, that silvered now the rails, and now flung its beams athwart the stubble of a b.u.t.te as the 229 swung a curve. Around him, about him, was dizzy, lurching chaos, as, like some mad thing, the little switcher reeled drunkenly through the night--now losing her wheel-base with a sickening slew on the circling track, now finding it again with a staggering quiver as she struck the tangent once more.

It was not scientific running--P. Walton never eased her, never helped her--P. Walton was not an engineer. He only knew that he must go fast to make the seven miles in eleven minutes--and he was going fast. And, mocking every formula of dynamics, the little switcher, with no single trailing coach to steady it, swinging, swaying, rocking, held the rails.

P. Walton's lips were still half parted in their strange, curious smile. A deafening roar was in his ears--the pound of beating trucks on the fish-plates; the creak and groan of axle play; the screech of crunching f.l.a.n.g.es; the whistling wind; the full-toned thunder now of the exhaust--and reverberating back and forth, flinging it from b.u.t.te to b.u.t.te, for miles around in the foothills the still night woke into a thousand answering echoes.

Meanwhile, back in Big Cloud, things were happening in the super's office. Spence, the despatcher, interrupting Carleton and Regan at their nightly pedro, came hastily into the room.

”Something's wrong,” he said tersely. ”I can't get anything west of here, and----” He stopped suddenly, as Mulligan, flabby white, came tumbling into the room.

”He's gone off his chump!” screamed Mulligan. ”Gone delirious, or mad, or----”

”What's the matter?” Carleton was on his feet, his words cold as ice.

”Here!” gasped the engineer. ”Look!” He dragged Carleton to the side window, and pointed up the track--the 229, sparks volleying skyward from her stack, was just disappearing around the first bend.

”That's--that's the two-twenty-nine!” he panted. ”P. Walton's in her--drove me and Dalheen out of the cab with a revolver.”

For an instant, no more than a breathing s.p.a.ce, no one spoke; then Spence's voice, with a queer sag in it, broke the silence:

”Extra Thirty-four left Spider Cut eight minutes ago.”

Carleton, master always of himself, and master always of the situation, spoke before the words were hardly out of the despatcher's mouth:

”Order the wrecker out, Spence--jump! Mulligan, go down and help get the crew together.” And then, as Spence and Mulligan hurried from the room, Carleton looked at the master mechanic. ”Well, Tommy, what do you make of this?” he demanded grimly.

Regan, with thinned lips, was pulling viciously at his mustache.

”What do I make of it!” he growled. ”A mail train in the ditch, and nothing worth speaking of left of the two-twenty-nine--that's what I make of it!”

Carleton shook his head.

”Doesn't it strike you as a rather remarkable coincidence that our wires should go out, and P. Walton should go off his head with delirium at the same moment?”

”Eh!” snapped Regan sharply. ”Eh!--what do you mean?”

”I don't mean anything,” Carleton answered, clipping off his words.

”It's strange, that's all--I think we'll go up with the wrecker, Tommy.”

”Yes,” said Regan slowly, puzzled; then, with a scowl and a tug at his mustache: ”It does look queer, queerer every minute--blamed queer! I wonder who P. Walton is, and where he came from anyhow?”

”You asked me that once before,” Carleton threw back over his shoulder, moving toward the door. ”P. Walton never said.”

And while Regan, still tugging at his mustache, followed Carleton down the stairs to the platform, and ill-omened call boys flew about the town for the wrecking crew, and the 1018, big and capable, snorting from a full head of steam, backed the tool car, a flat, and the rumbling derrick from a spur to the main line, P. Walton still sat, smiling strangely, clinging to the window sill of the laboring 229, staring out into the night through the cab gla.s.s ahead.

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